Freedland’s suggestion that Kasztner’s appeal was upheld by the Supreme Court (by which time he was dead, assassinated by agents of Shin Bet in 1957), because
they accepted that Kasztner had in good faith believed that he was engaged in an effort to save the many, rather than the few
is the precise opposite of what happened. The Supreme Court found no such thing. Haim Cohen, [Zionism’s] attorney‐general, conducted the appeal. He argued that:
If in Kasztner’s opinion, rightly or wrongly, he believed that one million Jews were hopelessly doomed, he was allowed not to inform them of their fate; and to concentrate on the saving of the few. He was entitled to make a deal with the Nazis for the saving of a few hundred and entitled not to warn the millions […] that was his duty… It has always been our Zionist tradition to select the few out of many in arranging the immigration to Palestine […] Are we to be called traitors?
Judge Cheshin summed up the viewpoint of the majority of the Supreme Court when he ruled that:
A person sees that an entire community is doomed, is he allowed to make efforts to save the minority, although some of the efforts consist in hiding the truth from the majority or must he reveal the truth to all.
The decision of [Zionism’s] Supreme Court was primarily political not legal. Cheshin voiced the fears of [the] Zionist Establishment that:
if we rule that Kasztner collaborated with the enemy because he failed to inform those who boarded the trains in [Kasztner’s hometown] Kluj that they were heading for extermination, then it is necessary to bring to court today […] many other leaders and half‐leaders who also kept silent in times of crisis, who didn’t inform others about what they knew.
Being a modest man, Freedland begins the book with “Praise for The Escape Artist” and there are 39 examples which demonstrate not so much the brilliance of his book as the ignorance of his admirers.
Adjectives such as “riveting,” “thrilling” and “fascinating” abound. To Jamie Susskind Freedland’s book is “not just one of the best books I’ve read about the Holocaust, it is one of the most important books I’ve ever read.”
To Zionist historian Simon Schama, the book is “immersive, shattering and ultimately redemptive.” To Tom Holland The Escape Artist ranks alongside Anne Frank’s Diary and Primo Levy.
All I can say to these “experts” is that they should read Vrba’s book I Cannot Forgive. There is nothing of importance in The Escape Artist that isn’t in Vrba’s book. It is Vrba’s book, not Freedland’s cheap imitation thriller that ranks alongside Anne Frank’s Diary and Is This a Man.
According to the Financial Times, “Vrba died almost forgotten.” Melissa Fay Green told how “I didn’t know Vrba’s name previously.” For C.J. Carey it was a “little‐known story.”
The real question is why Vrba was unknown. The Holocaust has produced thousands of books and articles. Why then was it that the names of the first Jewish escapees from Auschwitz (leaving aside Siegfried Lederer who was taken out by an SS man) were almost entirely missing from the history of the Holocaust and Auschwitz?
The simple answer is that a conscious decision was taken by the Zionist Holocaust historians, led by Yehuda Bauer and Yisrael Gutman, to erase all mention of Vrba and Wetzler. Freedland justifies this and Zionism’s distortion of history because of the need to preserve Zionism’s monopoly when it comes to Holocaust history.
[…]
Freedland’s book is part of the process of manipulating and changing the historical record to accord with a false narrative of Zionist heroism. Freedland pretends that Vrba was a supporter of Israel “and rooted for it” believing that its existence “was a good thing for Jews.”
The idea that Vrba was some kind of Zionist is absurd. Freedland provides no evidence for his assertion. On the contrary when he first met Ruth Linn, a Haifa University professor of education, he told her that he had no interest in “your state of the Judenrats and Kastners.”
(Emphasis added.)
While I am unfamiliar with Jonathan Freedland’s other writings, it is probably an overreaction to accuse him of being a neofascist. I cannot, however, allow another overrated historiaster to whitewash Zionism’s profascist history again. That is what makes him relevant to capitalism in decay.
Click here for events that happened today (August 24).
1903: Karl Hanke, Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel, was sadly born.
1937: The Basque Army surrendered to the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie following the Santoña Agreement. Meanwhile, the Sovereign Council of Asturias and León was proclaimed in Gijón.
1938: The Third Reich’s head of state asked his generals to evaluate the possibility of the conquest and occupation of Belgium and the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the Imperialists captured Ruichang, Jiangxi, China, and an Imperial warplane shot down the Kweilin, a Chinese civilian airliner, killing fourteen people. It was the first recorded instance of somebody shooting down a civilian airliner.
1939: In Berlin, journalist William Shirer noted in his diary that ‘it looks like war’ based on his observations throughout the day, and coincidentally the warship Deutschland departed the Reich for a raiding mission against British shipping. M1 also ferried 230 naval infantry troops of the Marinestosstruppkompanie to the battleship Schleswig‐Holstein during the preparations for the invasion of Poland, and U‐23 began her first war patrol.
1940: Before dawn, the London Blitz began as a misguided group of Fascist bombers from KG1 unloaded their bombs London’s Thames Haven oil terminal, which also damaged the church of St. Gile in East End; Göring demanded to know the crews that did this so to punish them. Clear weather allowed the Fascist attacks to restart in size, and Fascist bombers arrived in waves against RAF Hornchurch, RAF North Weald, and RAF Manston in southern England; the Fascists lost twenty‐two fighters and eighteen bombers, while the British lost twenty fighters. At 1600 hours, fifty Fascist aircraft bombed Portsmouth in southern England, slaughtering one hundred civilians and wounding a further three hundred while damaging HMS Acheron (killing two and wounding three) and HMS Bulldog (killing the commanding officer) in the harbor. Overnight, deliberate bombing of London began, hitting north, east, and west of the city. Hans‐Joachim Marseille scored his first kill, a British Hurricane Mk I fighter, over Kent, England. While he was congratulated by his commanding officer, he was also reprimanded because he achieved the kill after abandoning his wingman to pursue the target. Later that evening, in his diary, he noted great sadness when he thought about the enemy pilot’s mother never being able to see his son again.
1941: The Third Reich’s Chancellery ordered the cessation of its systematic T4 euthanasia programme of the mentally ill and the handicapped due to protests, but killings continue for the remainder of the war. As well, Vichy passed ‘antiterrorist’ laws, punishable with death sentences, to deal with the resistance movement, and Oberleutnant Hans Philipp became the 33rd member recipient of the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Cross. On the other hand, the Axis suffered heavy losses during the Soviet counterattack near Odessa, Ukraine.
1942: The Axis aircraft carrier Ryūjō sunk during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, with the loss of seven officers and 113 crewmen (but the Yankee carrier USS Enterprise was still heavily damaged).
1944: The Allies began their assault on Axis‐occupied Paris.
1949: The treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization went into effect.
1979: Hanna Reitsch, Axis aviator and test pilot, expired.